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The Pentium P6100 and the Core i3-330M belong to the same architecture and belong to the same family which makes them interesting for comparison. Let us take a look at some of the facts before we compare their performance difference.

1. Pentium P6100 is clocked at 2.0 GHz while the Core i3-330M is clocked at 2.13 GHz.
2. Both the processors have integrated graphics units.
3. Both these processors have Integrated Memory Controller.
4. The processors belong to the Arrandale Series and have same architecture. The communication with the chipset is using HyperTransport Bus.
5. Both, the Pentium P6100 as well as the Core i3-330M have same 3 MB L3 Cache.

The gap between the performance of the Pentium P6100 and the Core i3-330M should widen given the fact that the core i3-330m is clocked at 2.13 GHz and Pentium P6100 is clocked at only 2 GHz. Let us take a look at some architectural comparisons.

You may like to note that Hyperthreading is not advantageous under all circumstances. Under certain specific circumstances it does benefit the multi threaded processes to an extent. Statistically, it has been observed that most processes take benefit of the Hyperthreading.

Before we start comparing the benchmark results of the Pentium P6000 and the Intel’s Dual core T4500 let us compare their features and architecture

– The Intel Pentium P6000 as well as the Intel T4500 are dual core processors. The P6000 is based upon the newer Arrandale architecture ( same architecture that powers the intel core i3 processors) while T4500 is based upon older Penryn architecture.

The Pentium P6000 is clocked at 1.86 GHz while T4500 is clocked at 2.3 GHz. Compared purely on the Clock speed the T4500 is significantly faster than the Pentium P6000

– The Pentium P6000 comes with integrated memory controller. In the integrated memory controller, the processor communicates with the memory directly, with no chip involved in between them. The Dual core T4500, on the other hand, communicates first with a north Bridge, which in turn communicates with the Memory. This slows down the processor to the memory communication speed.

– The L1 Cache structure is same for P6000 as well as the T4500. However, the arrangement of the L2 and L3 Cache is different. The Pentium P6000 comes with 3 MB of shared L3 Cache.The Dual core T4500 has 1 MB of L2 Cache. The Cache memory is impressive in the P6000, but is it enough to trounce T4500 ?

– The integrated graphics controller in P600 helps in the design of simpler and low cost system. The T4500 does not come with any integrated graphics controller.

The real way to tell which of the two processors is faster and by how much is to compare the benchmark results.

– The Super Pi 2M takes 54 seconds with the Pentium P6000 while it takes close to 63 seconds in case of T4500 processor. Single threaded applications seem to favor the Pentium P6000 even with much slower clock.

– The 3D Mark06 CPU score for Pentium P6000 is 1640 while that of the Dual core T4500 is 1920 implying a tie in the performance.

The AMD’s Athlon ii P320 as well as the Intel Pentium Dual Core T4500 are seen in the entry level notebooks and the comparison is interesting. It turns out that the Athlon ii’s exotic Integrated Memory controller is not good enough to make it a better processor in terms of the benchmarking results. The higher 2.3 GHz clock frequency of the Dual core T4500 weigh heavily and does not let the 2.1 GHz P320 go past it.

Before we do quantitative and benchmark comparison of the Athlon ii P320 with Dual Core T4500, let us take a look at the qualitative comparison of the P320 with T4500

– Both the Athlon ii P320 as well as the Dual Core T4500 are dual core. While P340 is clocked at 2.1 GHz, the T4500 is clocked at 2.3 GHz.

– The Athlon ii P320 has integrated memory controller, which speeds up the processor to memory controller. The memory DIMM module connect to the processor directly. This is unlike the Intel’s T4500 architecture, in which, the processor first communicate with the North Bridge, which in turn communicates with the Memory. This slows down the processor to memory communication.

– Both the Athlon ii P320 as well as the T4500 have 1 MB of L2 Cache.
– The Athlon ii P320 communicates with the chipset using fast differential HyperTransport Bus. The Intel’s Dual core T4500 communicated with Front Side Bus.

Given these facts, it is difficult to arrive at a quick decision as to which of these two is faster. The Table below lists out some of the bench marking results.

From the Table, it is obvious that the Intel’s Dual core T4500 has better performance than the Athlon ii P320, though the margin is not very high. It may be more appropriate to compare the Athlon ii P340 with Intel Dual core T4500.

The AMD’s Athlon ii P340 and the Intel core i3-370 are both found in the entry level notebooks. The AMD Athlon II P340 vs Intel Core i3-370M is a natural curiousity for a casual notebook user or a potential buyer. We will present a qualitative comparison followed by a quantative benchmark comparison to arrive at the decision as to which one is better and by how much.

Qualitative comparison of the Athlon ii P340 and Core i3-370M

– Both the Athlon ii P340 as well as the core i3-370M are dual core processor.
– The Athlon ii P340 is clocked at 2.2 GHz while the Intel core i3-370M is clocked at 2.40 GHz
– The Core i3-370M has 3M of Cache memory while the Athlon ii P340 comes with 1 MB of L2 Cache.
– Both the processors have Integrated Memory Controller which speeds up the processor to memory communication.
– The Core i3-370M has Integrated Graphics Unit, which is help in design of low cost system that does not need high end graphics.

Given this background, the core i3-370M is obviously a better choice, not only because of higher clock rate but also because of the support for Hyperthreading, larger Cache, Integrated Memory controller. The only question is not if but by how much. Read on …

Quantitative comparison of the Athlon ii P340 and Core i3-370M

The table below shows comparison of the Athlon ii P340 and the Intel core i3-370M for common benchmarks

The APU stands for Accelerated Processing Unit and is a term Coined by Advanced Micro Devices, AMD, the number 2 computer chip maker. APU is essentially a fusion of the processor and the graphics unit in one single chip. The merger reduces the overall cost as compared to integrating the processor and the graphics unit.

Intel’s Sandy Bridge is the answer to the AMD’s APU. Sandy bridge has implemented the processor and the graphics in a single die using 32 nm lithography. While AMD has so far implemented the APU only in Entry level notebooks, Sandy Bridge processors come with advanced and high computing power.